Profile: Sam Reed

Sam Reed was a participant or observer in the following events:

Christine Gregoire and Dino Rossi. [Source: Associated Press / KomoNews]State Attorney General Christine Gregoire (D-WA) is apparently defeated in the Washington State gubernatorial race in the closest such race in US history, losing to former state senator and current real-estate mogul Dino Rossi (R-WA) by 261 votes. The percentage vote is split evenly, 49-49, with 2 percent of the vote going to Libertarian Ruth Bennett. Democrats John Kerry (D-MA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) won the state’s presidential and Senate races, respectively. Both Gregoire and Rossi attempted to run as relatively moderate members of their parties, though their stance on health care, in particular, showed striking differences between them: Rossi ran on a platform of limiting lawsuit awards and drastically cutting state spending on Medicare and other expenditures, while Gregoire promised to expand coverage by finding ways to cut spending in other areas. Both candidates attacked the other relentlessly on the health care issue. On the evening of the election, November 2, Gregoire leads by some 7,000 votes, but as absentee votes are counted over the next few days, her lead dwindles and vanishes. By November 17, when all 39 counties complete their vote tallies, Rossi leads by 261 votes. State law mandates a machine recount, and the recount cuts Rossi’s lead to 42 votes. On November 30, Secretary of State Sam Reed certifies Rossi as the winner. Gregoire requests an additional recount, to be paid for by the Washington Democratic Party, and also files suit asking that ballots rejected in the first count be reconsidered, citing what the suit calls “[p]rior errors and inconsistencies in the initial canvassing and machine recount of ballots.” State Democratic Party chair Paul Berendt says: “I’ve never stopped believing Chris Gregoire was elected governor. It would be easy to demand a recount in a few counties, but she wanted every vote or no vote, and that’s what we’re going to do.” Rossi campaign spokesperson Mary Lane retorts: “As far as we’re concerned, it’s trying to overturn the legitimate result of this election by any means necessary, ethical or not. Christine Gregoire cares more about her own political ambition than what the voters actually think.” Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance calls the lawsuit to reconsider rejected votes “a nuclear bomb. It will blow up our election system in Washington state.” The suit is filed on behalf of four voters who claim they were denied the opportunity to vote. One of those voters, Ronald Taro Suyematsu of King County, says he never received his absentee ballot in the mail. He voted on Election Day using a provisional ballot, but he was not listed as a registered voter and his vote was discarded. Democrats allege that many ballots were inappropriately challenged by Republican observers, that county canvassing board rejected qualified ballots, and voters were denied meaningful notice of challenges. The lawsuit also says counties used varying standards “regarding signature-matching for absentee and provisional ballots.” The suit does not allege deliberate manipulation by county officials. “In some respects, the problems might not be more frequent than in a typical election, but the narrow margin between the candidates means that, unlike the typical election, they are not harmless,” the suit alleges. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10/20/2004; 2004 General Election - First Recount > Statewide Offices > Results, 11/17/2004; Seattle Times, 12/3/2004; HistoryLink (.org), 6/7/2005]

Real-estate mogul Dino Rossi (R-WA), who was declared the loser in the 2004 Washington State gubernatorial race by a mere 129 votes (see December 23, 2004 - January 12, 2005), demands that the entire result be thrown out and a new election held. “Quite frankly, folks, this election has been a total mess,” he says. Secretary of State Sam Reed (R-WA), who certified Christine Gregoire (D-WA) as the legitimate governor, responds, “I do not feel like this has been a botched election.” He says the election process had been fair, but adds, “I would not say I think somebody ought to be conceding at this point.” Rossi can contest the election, Reed says. Rossi says if a court finds in his favor, he would argue for an entirely new election as opposed to the court or the legislature deciding the outcome. “The people have a right to decide who their next chief executive officer is for the state of Washington, if we end up with an election set aside,” he says. Rossi urges Gregoire to join him in calling for a new election in the interest of comity and voter confidence. If she takes the position after the recounts, Rossi says, her tenure will be “shrouded in suspicion.” To head that off, he says, “[a] revote would be the best solution for the people of our state and would give us a legitimate governorship.” Gregoire’s spokesperson Morton Brilliant says Gregoire is not considering such an action. “This ain’t golf,” he says. “No mulligans allowed here, folks.” Washington Democrats call Rossi’s request “ridiculous” and “hypocritical.” Kirsten Brost of the Washington Democratic Party says: “In the same breath, Dino Rossi says a drawn-out process would hurt Washington state and then he asks for another election. He wants to spend $4 million of taxpayer money for a new election because he doesn’t like the results.” State law does not allow for a revote, but Reed says it could happen if a court or the state legislature orders one. Rossi says that if his and Gregoire’s positions were reversed, he would welcome a new election. “I would not want to enter office with so many people viewing my governorship as illegitimate,” he says. Former Secretary of State Ralph Munro (R-WA) originally called for a revote, saying the current election count had been bungled so badly no one had confidence the votes were counted accurately. Munro is the chairman of Votehere Inc., a company that manufactures a “safe and secure” voter tallying system. Munro denies trying to drum up business for his firm, and says that if such a revote were held, he would not care who won. [Seattle Times, 12/30/2004]

Washington State Republicans file a lawsuit challenging the results of an election recount that gave Christine Gregoire (D-WA) the victory in a close race for the governorship against Dino Rossi (R-WA—see December 23, 2004 - January 12, 2005). Rossi’s recent demand for an entirely new election was not heeded (see December 29-30, 2004). Rossi announces the lawsuit, challenging the validity of the recounts that eventually gave Gregoire the victory. He says that if the court finds in his favor, he would again ask for a new election: “It’s clear that this election is a mess. A re-vote is the only way I think we can go.” The suit is being filed in Chelan County Superior Court, an eastern county. Republicans say they prefer this venue to a court in Western Washington, which they say is more liberal. Kirsten Brost of the Washington Democratic Party says that regardless of what the court may say, there is no provision in state law for a new election. “If they are going to have another election, they would have to amend the state Constitution,” she says. Rossi and state Republicans are claiming that voter fraud gave Gregoire the victory. “We’ve found people who are felons that have voted, we’ve found people who have voted more than once,” Rossi says. “We’ve also found people who have remained politically active after they are dead.” [New York Times, 1/7/2005]Reports of Dead People Casting Votes - The Seattle press recently reported that a Seattle resident had cast a vote on behalf of his wife who had died shortly before the election. The man said his wife wanted him to cast her vote for Rossi, and he did so. “A dead person cannot vote, not even for me,” Rossi says. Seattle prosecutors are investigating the charge, along with evidence that at least seven other ballots for dead voters were cast. One of the eight cases uncovered by the Seattle press was due to an administrative error that inaccurately listed a living voter as having died. Another vote cast by a woman who died in August was challenged by the woman’s husband, who insists that he destroyed the absentee ballot mailed to their residence after she died. A third case involves a woman using her deceased husband’s absentee ballot instead of the one mailed in her name. Another was cast by a man who filled out his absentee ballot, then died before he mailed it. His wife mailed the ballot on his behalf. “These are not indications of fraud,” says Bill Huennekens, King County’s elections supervisor. “Fraud is a concerted effort to change an election.” [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1/6/2005; New York Times, 1/7/2005]Hundreds of Provisional Ballots Causing Controversy - More to the point are the hundreds of provisional ballots which may have been improperly counted. Republicans say that King County, the state’s largest county and a reliable Democratic stronghold, counted many provisional votes without determining that the people who cast them were registered voters. King County officials recently admitted that 348 provisional ballots were mistakenly counted. Gregoire was certified the winner by 129 votes, though it is unlikely that all 348 provisional ballots were cast for Gregoire. Minor Mistakes Being Used to Challenge Election? - Brost says that Republicans are pointing at a small number of routine tallying errors and trying to use them to reverse a legitimate outcome. “In order to throw out this election,” she says, “they would have to prove that the mistakes made resulted in the wrong person winning. It’s not sufficient to just say there’s mistakes.” Secretary of State Sam Reed (R-WA) says he approves of the lawsuit. “A court of law is the proper forum to provide a judicious and objective answer to legitimate questions raised about the elections and its results,” he says. [New York Times, 1/7/2005]

The Seattle Times reports that Washington State Democrats believe the White House is behind the efforts to force a recount in the November 2004 governor’s race. Christine Gregoire (D-WI) defeated Dino Rossi (R-WI) after a recount gave Gregoire a narrow victory (see December 23, 2004 - January 12, 2005). Since then Rossi and Washington State Republicans have demanded new recounts or even a new election (see December 29-30, 2004). In January 2005, they filed a lawsuit to overturn the election results, alleging voter fraud tainted the vote (see January 7, 2005, January 24-28, 2005, and February 4, 2005). The FBI and US Attorney John McKay have investigated the allegations of voter fraud and found them groundless (see December 2004 and January 4, 2005), though state Republicans have been displeased with those findings (see Late 2004 or Early 2005, Late 2004, and January 4, 2005). As the lawsuit wends its way through the courts, Democrats tell reporters that the evidence being brought to bear by state Republicans in the lawsuit is worthless. One party attorney says their list of alleged illegal voters would end up as toilet paper “in an outhouse on Blewett Pass” on the mountain highway route that leads to the Chelan County courthouse, where the case will be heard. However, solicitations sent by Washington State Democratic Party chairman Paul Berendt say the White House, led by deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, is pushing the GOP lawsuit. Berendt’s letter warns of “guerrilla tactics” by “right-wing attorneys” and “extremist operatives” who are “meticulously crafting a case to unseat Christine Gregoire.” Berendt stands behind the letter, saying: “[W]e believe this, too. We believe that Rove is in regular contact with people here.” Rossi spokesperson Mary Lane confirms that the Rossi campaign is regularly updating the White House on the case, saying: “They’re interested in what’s going on.… We talk to them about it.” However, “[t]here’s certainly no Karl Rove pulling strings.” White House spokesperson Ken Lisaius says no one in the Bush administration is involved in the lawsuit, telling a reporter: “As reluctant as I am to comment on an inflammatory fund-raising piece, those are just not the facts. The White House is not directing any sort of strategy for the Rossi campaign and to suggest otherwise is to suggest someone is not very well informed.” Berendt points to the Rossi campaign’s use of Washington, DC, attorney Mark Braden as chief counsel; Braden spent 10 years as chief counsel to the Republican National Committee. Berendt says his party uses local attorneys. He also cites Rove’s 1994 involvement in the case of an Alabama state Supreme Court election, in which Rove fought for a recount claiming that the election had been “stolen.” The Times writes: “There are parallels to the current dispute here over the governor’s election. In both cases, Republicans held a news conference with the parents of a military voter to question whether overseas ballots were handled properly. Republicans in both states filed a lawsuit that named a long list of public officials as respondents. Both held rallies; business groups financed media campaigns.” Rove’s candidate eventually won (see Early 1994 - October 1995). Berendt says that Rove was also behind failed attempts to force recalls of Republican Secretary of State Sam Reed and Democratic King County Councilman Dow Constantine. Berendt writes, “We know what they’re doing, and we’re going to tell the world that it’s the Bush team, with the Bush tactics, and Karl Rove pulling the strings that’s trying to defeat us.” [Seattle Times, 3/5/2005]

The civil trial brought by Washington State Republicans to try to “settle” the disputed 2004 governor’s race between Dino Rossi (R-WA) and Christine Gregoire (D-WA) opens. Gregoire won the recount to defeat Rossi by a slender 129-vote margin (see December 23, 2004 - January 12, 2005), but Republicans, claiming an array of voter fraud and other inappropriate actions cost Rossi the vote (see December 29-30, 2004), filed a lawsuit to have the election results overturned (see January 7, 2005). The lawyer for the Republican plaintiffs, Dale Foreman, says in his opening statement that he has evidence of “ballot stuffing” in King County, the most populous county in Washington and a center of Gregoire’s Democratic voter strength. “This is not just a case of sloppy. This is a case of election fraud,” Foreman says. Up until today, Republican plaintiffs have insisted that they would not need to allege fraud in the race to win the lawsuit. “This election was stolen from the legal voters of the state by a bizarre combination of illegal voters and bumbling bureaucrats,” Foreman continues. “King County’s failure to track the absentee ballots was not only unlawful, but it opened the door for ballots to be subtracted or added.… The evidence will show partisan bias. And partisan bias is a very politically correct way of saying, ‘Somebody stuffed the ballot box.’ You know, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.” (US Attorney John McKay will later say that he is amazed to hear Foreman make such a claim, telling a reporter in 2007: “I was shocked to see him use the words ‘ballot-stuffing’ because that is a crime. If you say that, you are ethically bound to prove that.” McKay launched an aggressive investigation into voter fraud after the election that bore no fruit—see December 2004, Late 2004, Late 2004 or Early 2005, January 4, 2005, January 4, 2005, April 28, 2005, and May 2005). Foreman tells the jury that “sinister” fraud and corruption “up the food chain” robbed Rossi of the governor’s office. Judge John Bridges quickly puts an end to Foreman’s claims, reminding him and the jury that he and his clients have not included such charges in their case up until now, and Foreman cannot add them at this point in the proceedings. Bridges will allow Foreman and the plaintiffs to introduce evidence against King County, but will not allow them to label it as fraud in the courtroom. The Seattle Times reports, “That matters because a fraud claim would not require Republicans to show that King County’s actions specifically cost Rossi votes or gave… Gregoire her winning margin of 129 votes.” Now, Republicans must show that specific actions by election workers, illegal votes by convicted felons, and other actions directly affected the candidates’ vote totals. “The judge will wait… to see if they connect the dots and show election fraud,” says Thomas Ahearne, an attorney representing Secretary of State Sam Reed (R-WA). The plaintiffs have scheduled no one to testify about allegations of fraud, including ballot stuffing. The plaintiffs want Bridges to subtract votes they consider to be “illegal” from each candidate based, not on demonstrable fraud or illegality, but on the statistical pattern of the overall vote in each precinct. Democrats consider this idea “bogus,” press reports say. [Seattle Times, 5/24/2005; National Journal, 5/24/2005; Seattle Times, 3/13/2007]

In response to a Supreme Court decision allowing states to require photo ID for voting, Fox News states as fact the theory that photo ID requirements would have prevented a case of voter registration fraud in Washington State, in which seven ACORN workers were convicted. Fox News writes, “But if photo ID requirements had been the law in Washington State, the voter fraud scandal involving ACORN in 2006 would never have happened.” [Fox News, 5/2/2008] The report continues: “According to Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, the incident ‘was the worst case of election fraud in our state’s history. It was an outrage’.” Reed is both misquoted and quoted out of context. He was not referring to photo ID. The Seattle Times version of the same quote reads: “‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the worst case of voter-registration fraud in the history of the state of Washington. There has been nothing comparable to this,’ state Secretary of State Sam Reed said at a news conference.” [Seattle Times, 7/6/2007; Fox News, 5/2/2008]

Washington State resident Steven Marquis files a petition in Washington’s Superior Court demanding that Secretary of State Sam Reed either prove that Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is a “natural born” citizen or remove him from the presidential ballot. Marquis says that granting his petition would “prevent the wholesale disenfranchisement of voters” who might otherwise choose a candidate who is a valid citizen. “At this point, Mr. Obama has not allowed independent or official access to his birth records nor supporting hospital records,” Marquis writes in his petition, and accuses the Hawaii Health Department of “violat[ing] federal law by ignoring formal Freedom of Information requests for the same.” Obama has long since posted an authentic copy of his birth certificate on the Internet (see June 13, 2008), and this has repeatedly been verified as valid (see June 27, 2008, July 2008, and August 21, 2008). Marquis references another lawsuit challenging Obama’s citizenship, filed by lawyer Philip Berg and awaiting a hearing in a federal district court (see August 21-24, 2008). Marquis explains the timing of his petition—just before the presidential elections—as caused by Obama’s “delay and subsequent non-response to reasonable request for valid certificates.” He also cites the Washington secretary of state’s office’s refusal to certify Obama’s birth certificate as he has previously requested, writing, “To date, in this regard, Secretary of State Sam Reed has not carried out that fundamental duty.” Washington Superior Court Judge John Erlick will throw out Marquis’s petition, saying Reed has no such authority to force Obama to prove his citizenship, and cites Marquis’s failure to name Obama as a party to his complaint. [WorldNetDaily, 10/16/2008; Mid-Columbia Tri-City Herald, 10/28/2008; WorldNetDaily, 11/13/2008]

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